RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 168

Balthazar had logged back into the game. With him being gone for a few minutes, Merlin had already decided to attempt the hell mode of the dungeon. Merlin already had enough experience and with the guides provided by Shadow which had methods to clear the dungeon even without the subjugation skill, he was quite confident on clearing the hell mode.

“Who was the tenth guy?” Shadow asked Blinding White who was still recruiting members for Blazing Fury.

“It was Griff. This dungeon doesn’t really have much use for assasins once we know the path. So, Merlin decided to take another heavy hitter with him,” said Blinding.

“Ok. I will be in the Forging Association or Engineering. Contact me if you need anything,” said Balthazar as he went to book a forging room first. It was the best way to increase his experience to a high level in short time without killing monsters and he needed to gain a significant amount to maintain his advantage over the others as he might not be able to play the game for a day.

He decided to create a few more of the gold two-handed weapons, before trying to work on other stuff. He also had plans to use the same design of the gold weapon to create a weapon pair of detachable daggers. With daggers having smaller size, he was sure that he didn’t need to make use of copper as dagger blades with lower size reduces the requirement for handle sturdiness.

He started to experiment with the idea and began to work on a pair of detachable daggers with only iron ore but failed to get results. He used the antelope horns with three iron ores for the pair of daggers. The first two times, they completely failed to be recognized by the system as completed products before they were finally realized as a proper weapon. The system failed to inspect both of them together as an entity but realized them to be a pair of daggers. This was far from what Balthazar had hoped to achieve.

It was a complete waste in his eyes. Even though the dagger was recognized as a black iron daggers, he didn’t care about them. They had similar stats to that of the antelope horn dagger and were level 12 daggers as one more iron ore was used in their making. In his eyes, it was a complete failure. The only good thing that he could see about it was that he managed to produce another original black-iron equipment which put him a step closer to intermediate forger.

“This is a waste of time and even if the daggers are considered as a single entity, I doubt that there would be much use with this attempt. Only good thing is that I got a higher-level dagger pair using antelope horns,” thought Balthazar.

With the failure of his attempt, he decided against detachable weapons which could be made without copper ore. He decided to make a few more of the gold weapons that he had made previously as he had about 40 more copper ores before going ahead to attempt engineering tools. He hadn’t tried to make the rifle crossbow till now.

He continued to make the double-handed weapons for another two hours before he went out of the forging association. He handed them off to Lizzie and collected enough materials from her, before he went to the engineering association to make the rifle crossbow.

The bow was a weapon that was harder and took more time to create than swords or spears. The crossbow required a bow along with a proper trigger and loading mechanism which were all delicate stuff. By the time, he made the first rifle crossbow, he took 30 minutes.

It also earned him 1000 exp and 2 engineering proficiency. He began to wonder if this was the best option for quickly earning experience. Moreover, the proficiency, he earned could be considered much lower than the forging proficiency per equipment he made due to the effect of Kade’s Insignia. Due to the long time, he took to make one of them, he began to wonder if it was best to continue making rifle crossbows. He also thought of getting out and kill monsters to get a simpler engineering blueprints that would allow him to create tools at a faster pace, but realized he couldn’t do that as he needed to log out as soon as he was contacted by Lucius and that wouldn’t be possible if he was fighting monsters. It was an unpredictable scenario.

He thought for some time and finally decided to continue with making more rifle crossbows. He had about 4 hours left to play in the game and if he works properly, he was sure that he could make eight other units of the rifle crossbows.

He continued with that before he received a notification informing that someone was trying to contact him in the real-life. He had managed to create seven rifle crossbows while failing two attempts and created inferior silver grade crossbows.

“I guess we have finally reached our destination,” thought Balthazar as he received the notification. He put in the half-finished crossbow into his bag and got out and ran to Lizzie and gave all his items to her before logging out.

“We have reached our destination,” asked Balthazar as soon as he removed the helmet. Robert had also stopped using the somnium headgear and was standing beside him.

“Ya. We are at the planet, GR-23. We had decided to change our destination due to some unforeseen circ.u.mstances. The planet isn’t really in our control but in the hands of the Price family. We are temporarily borrowing it,” said Richard.

“What?”

“Why the sudden change?”

“This changes a lot of things. We have no idea about the situation of the planet. How can we attempt it in some other planet?”

“Calm down, both of you,” said Lucius in a loud voice drowning out the questions of Balthazar and Robert.

“We are going to give you all the information you need. You don’t need to worry,” said Richard. “The suits will have link and image recognition that would allow you to identify which ever animal or plant you see.”

“Yes. We are also sending you the details of the various things on to your wrist bands. It is always best to be able to check these things manually,” added Lucius as he forwarded the information to both their wristbands. “We will also be in the vicinity to get you to safety in case you are injured, or you request to be withdrawn.”

“Let us talk about the important things about the planet, first,” said Lucius as he began to explain the important things. “The planet has twice rotations speed of earth. So, one day would be twelve hours. We will be staying here for at most 24 hours which is two days. You need to be ready to stay there at night. Find a safe place. Most of it covered with woods. There were a few humanoid intelligent tribes, but they were all eliminated. So, you would find a few places to keep yourself safe when it is dark.”

“That is the main difference you need to look for. The gravity is about 1.4 times that of Asklepian. So, you need to be aware of that and the atmosphere is quite breathable. Waters aren’t that dangerous either,” added Richard.

“Yes, get your suits now. It is actually a bit better than the trial that we had originally planned right?” said Richard pushing the pair of them into an adjacent room. The room was same the one in which they rested for the ride. There were a pair of dark metallic looking suits of armor having a large case with a bunch of panels attached to his back. There were three other people waiting for them seated beside combat suits.

“These three are the evaluators of your performance. They are researchers who have extensive knowledge of various resources that could be found and can determine their value, condition and usability,” said Lucius pointing at the three people sitting beside the combat suits.

“Nice to meet you guys,” said Balthazar greeting them. But the trio kept mum and didn’t respond.

“The three of them were appointed by the elder council. They will not talk to you throughout the journey. They are just supposed to evaluate you. You are still a bit infamous in the council due to your decision to leave the family when you joined the armed forces. So, they have appointed the most strict ones they could find,” whispered Richard into Balthazar’s ear on noticing his confused expression after greeting them.

“This is a nice combat suit,” said Balthazar as he looked at it. It was quite large and about 7 feet tall. He found it to be a lot simpler than the other ones he had been shown by Evelyn at Asklepian.

“Ya. It is an exploratory suit that we designed recently. Main objective is to explore new planets and moons. It has quite capable communication capabilities and very resilient. Can move through water, but you need to pull out the panels at the bottom of the case on its back for the propellers to work,” explained Richard pointing to the various points on the suit.

“Yeah. Wear it. Go through the manual. It is best if you go through it here and we will answer any doubts you have,” added Lucius.

“Where are the weapons?” asked Balthazar as he put on his suit and started to go through the manual. He was unable to find any details of it in the manual.

“Oh, yes! We haven’t yet set that up weapons, yet,” said Lucius. “It was still an experimental work. We have a pair of guns and strapped to its sides and also four magazines for them,” said Lucius pointing out the locations of the equipment on the case.

“A flare, a crossbow and two blades. These three are reusable. You need to find the cartridge and arrows and can repeat to use them,” said Richard as he brought these tools attached to a belt and strapped it onto Robert. “Also have a defensive force field generator on the buckle. It will cover your for about 3 minutes. Using it will also trigger a call for help and we will arrive to pick you up. The suit charges with solar power from the top of the case and you don’t need to be worried about conserving power. It is capable of running for more than 36 hrs on land. Water travel uses more power.”

“Yes, the belt also has a secondary locator beacon. It is just a redundancy. The other locator at your chest location of the suit. It is best to avoid damage to those parts. The case on your back is the best option you have to block any attacks. It is quite sturdy and you better use that instead of the shield generator if you want to continue on the trial. The case can store all your samples in it too. For this case, it will be holding your loot. It has a space for about 30 litres. You need to empty your cases, there is a switch that would call for a drone which would make trips with your collection. It can also be used if you have managed to capture a living creature. You can check about that in your manual,” added Lucius. “Try pulling out and putting the equipment from the case, removing the case from your back and check it out.”

Balthazar had already started checking out the features of the new combat suit. He always had a habit of checking the features of any equipment he was using in the military. He considered it essential to be able to use them with ease.

Soon, the ship came to the planet and stopped still, hovering in the air over a small hill in a forest area. Lucius and Richard also donned a couple of combat suits which were different from those of the two. Those were made to protection more than exploration.

“You guys are going to help us?” asked Robert who didn’t know that they would be down on the ground with them.

“No. Nothing of that sort. Just making a preliminary check of the surroundings. This is not a planet under our control, and we don’t find it comfortable to let you go without checking some basic security measures,” said Richard covering for their appearance in combat suits.

“Also, we are making use of the Price family resources. Need to have a chat and make sure that they cooperate. We don’t have a habit of trusting others easily,” added Lucius.

On Lucius’ command, the pilot opened the cargo bay doors of the ship. Richard threw down a rope ladder and the four of them went down the ladder and got off on the planet. One of the three researchers started a drone that is used to transport stuff and they had both Balthazar and Robert check if they were able to summon the drone through the suit before giving the approval for its use.

“You two can move in that direction,” said Lucius pointing down the hill. “We will meet the Price family representatives here.”

The ship which dropped them also got up and moved up higher in the atmosphere above the clouds. A stealth vessel piloted by Salazar moved out of the ship and started to observe them from the sky.